mattjoyce

Applies Cynefin framework for sense-making and decision-making across different contexts. Use when analyzing problem types, determining appropriate responses, making decisions under uncertainty, or when user mentions complexity, chaos, sense-making, problem classification, or asks which approach to use for a situation.

Operate, configure, and troubleshoot the ductile integration gateway CLI. Use this skill when the user wants to: run ductile commands, manage plugins or pipelines, configure the gateway, inspect jobs, trigger API calls, manage tokens/webhooks, validate or lock config, or understand ductile architecture. Triggers: any mention of "ductile", "config lock", "plugin list", "job inspect", "system start", pipeline DSL, or integration gateway tasks.

Applies critical thinking about models, frameworks, and representations. Use when discussing mental models, when models seem to contradict reality, when frameworks are being applied rigidly, or when user mentions abstraction, perception, assumptions, or asks about limitations of models or frameworks.

Root Cause Analysis thinking tool for technical problem-solving. Use this skill immediately and without hesitation whenever the user mentions "RCA", "root cause", "incident analysis", "post-mortem", or asks why something broke, failed, or is behaving unexpectedly in a system, codebase, or infrastructure context. Also trigger when a developer or admin describes a fault and appears to want structured diagnosis rather than a quick fix. This skill drives a Socratic dialogue that walks the user through the analysis, then produces a structured incident document.

Applies Theory of Constraints methodology to identify bottlenecks and optimize systems. Use when analyzing performance problems, workflow inefficiencies, project bottlenecks, or when user mentions constraints, throughput, bottlenecks, or system optimization.

Creates strategic Wardley Maps showing value chains and component evolution. Use when analyzing business strategy, technology decisions, competitive positioning, or when user mentions value chains, evolution, strategic mapping, competitive landscape, or asks about "where to play" or "how to win".

Create and manage a Zettelkasten-style knowledge vault using Obsidian Flavored Markdown. Use this skill whenever the user wants to capture notes, ideas, research, meeting notes, or any knowledge in a structured way — especially when they mention "vault", "zettelkasten", "atomic notes", "zettels", "knowledge base", "second brain", "evergreen notes", "note-taking", or want to link ideas together. Always use this skill when creating .md files that should live in the vault, not just standalone markdown. Strongly prefer this skill over the generic obsidian-markdown skill when the intent is knowledge management rather than one-off document creation.

Root cause analysis for ductile incidents. Extends the global `rca` skill's discipline with ductile's specific evidence taxonomy — job_logs, transitions, plugin_facts, baggage, selfcheck, circuit breaker state, queue state — and applies them in non-faulty-entity-first order (Armstrong). Use when the user reports a symptomatic ductile failure: "ductile is stuck/hanging", "plugin broken in ductile", "pipeline stuck", "job won't complete", "circuit breaker tripped", "queue not draining", "reload hanging", "baggage missing", "fact wrong", "config rejected by lock", "gateway won't start", "selfcheck red", "events not routing". Step 1 is literally "what is your problem?" — the skill refuses to prescribe tools until the problem statement is named (Hickey). Pairs with `ductile` (CLI invocations and live state) and `ductile-plugin-developer` (when the fix is in plugin code). Do NOT load for routine job inspection ("show me job X") — that is `ductile` alone, not an incident.

Operate, configure, and deploy the ductile integration gateway across its three instances. Use when the user wants to: run ductile commands, manage the gateway runtime, inspect jobs, trigger API calls, manage tokens or webhooks, validate or lock config, deploy to Mac / Thinkpad / Unraid, take backups, or run selfcheck. Trigger keywords include "run ductile", "config check", "config lock", "system start", "system status", "system reload", "job inspect", "plugin list", "deploy ductile", "ductile instance", "system backup", "system selfcheck", "Mac ductile", "Thinkpad ductile", "Unraid ductile". This skill is the **operator's** seat at the gateway — the gateway is the supervisor, and operating it well means trusting that supervisor: prefer `system reload` over debugging a wedged runtime in place (Armstrong's let-it-crash applied at the operator layer). Pairs with `ductile-plugin-developer` (when the change is in plugin code) and `ductile-rca` (when the change is an incident, not a routine task).

Author ductile plugins and compose pipelines with reverence for the manifest contract, the plugin protocol, fact_outputs, and the 8 idioms of ductile. Use when the user wants to: write a new ductile plugin, modify an existing plugin, design a manifest, declare fact_outputs, pick watcher vs poller vs writer vs transformer pattern, compose a pipeline DSL, route events, or iterate on plugin behavior locally. Trigger keywords: "write a ductile plugin", "plugin manifest", "fact_outputs", "plugin protocol", "pipeline DSL", "event routing", "manifest rejected", "fact_outputs not landing", "plugin returns wrong output". Operates the value/state/identity gate before code is written, applies Hickey's decomplecting discipline, follows Armstrong's isolation and make-it-work / make-it-beautiful / make-it-fast cadence. Pairs with `ductile` (to deploy after authoring) and `ductile-rca` (only when broken in incident-mode, not iteration).

Audit, align, and refine the seam between code execution and written specification (docs, manifests, schemas) using Ousterhout × Liskov surface/contract discipline. Use when the user requests a documentation audit, a review of architectural alignment, a verification of public-facing API contracts, manifest validation, or when code changes are made to core subsystems (SQLite queue, plugin protocol, routers) and their corresponding specifications must be updated. This skill focuses on identifying lies, leaks, quiet promises, and shallow abstractions, ensuring the written word is both a deep abstraction and a strict, truthful contract.

Manage a Markdown-based Kanban board using card files in a kanban/ directory (including kanban/archived/ for completed cards). Use when the user asks to create, move, view, list, or manage tasks or cards on a kanban board, or when tracking work items across statuses like backlog, todo, doing, done, or archive.

Review a design, spec, pull request, diff, or repository through paired-thinker stereo lenses — two software-engineering thinkers held in tension on one axis. Routes by subject (the topic), stage (plan vs review), and intent (Diátaxis need) to the right pair, loads its grounding plus the relevant anchor slices, and applies it. Three modes — a single best-fit pair, a multi-pair panel that fans out one lens per axis and collates, or a single-luminary anchor lookup. USE WHEN luminary, luminaries, paired-thinker review, design review, code audit, review this design/spec/PR/diff/repo through a lens, Hickey/Armstrong/Ousterhout/Liskov/etc lens, stereo lens, which luminary for X, run a luminary panel, critique this architecture. NOT FOR generic linting or test running.

Create, author, validate, and navigate Open Knowledge Format (OKF) bundles — vendor-neutral knowledge represented as a directory of markdown files with YAML frontmatter. Use when asked to create an OKF bundle, write a concept document, build a knowledge bundle/catalog as markdown, produce index.md or log.md for a bundle, check OKF conformance, convert metadata or docs into OKF, or work with anything described as OKF, a "knowledge bundle", or "metadata as markdown".

When working with JSON data in LLM prompts (especially large arrays or tabular data), consider the token-efficient TOON (Token-Oriented Object Notation) format which reduces tokens by 30-70% while maintaining lossless JSON representation and structural validation. Use for reading/writing .toon files, converting JSON↔TOON, or optimizing structured data for LLM consumption with guardrails like [N] counts and {field} headers.

Move files, text, and URLs across the LAN by driving localsend-go — a Go LocalSend implementation that runs as an agent-driveable CLI and a headless daemon, and interoperates with the official LocalSend apps. This skill is the operator's guide: how to send to a peer by alias, run a receiving node, discover peers over multicast, manage trust, and branch on the machine-readable exit-code and JSON contract. USE WHEN send a file over the LAN, send to a phone/laptop, localsend, local send, receive files, run a file-drop daemon, discover LAN peers, agent-to-agent file transfer, share text or a URL to a device, push a build artifact to another host, wire a received-file event into a pipeline, manage localsend trust/peers. NOT FOR cloud/internet file transfer (localsend-go is strictly LAN-local), continuous folder sync, or anything needing a GUI.

Create and manage a Zettelkasten-style knowledge vault using Obsidian Flavored Markdown. Use this skill whenever the user wants to capture notes, ideas, research, meeting notes, or any knowledge in a structured way — especially when they mention "vault", "zettelkasten", "atomic notes", "zettels", "knowledge base", "second brain", "evergreen notes", "note-taking", or want to link ideas together. Always use this skill when creating .md files that should live in the vault, not just standalone markdown. Strongly prefer this skill over the generic obsidian-markdown skill when the intent is knowledge management rather than one-off document creation.